Systems recovering after global IT outage affects Barcelona airport and 061 Catalan health hotline

A worldwide IT outage due to an issue with the cybersecurity CrowdStrike service has heavily affected Barcelona's El Prat airport and caused delays in airplanes as well as the Spanish airport network on Friday morning.

The outage was part of a global IT issue which also impacted airports worldwide: Berlin, Brisbane (Australia), Edinburgh (Scotland), Amsterdam (The Netherlands) and London, among others, as well as media companies like UK's Sky News. 

The incident was due to an update from CrowdStrike that does not properly adapt to Windows, and the company had already deployed a fix.

Aena, Spain's airport authority, reported that the outage mainly impacted check-in and information desks. However, 105 flights out of the over 3,520 operations until 2:30 pm had been canceled, as the company announced in the afternoon.

In Barcelona, Vueling carrier was the most affected with flights canceled to destinations like Menorca, Sant Sebastià, Jérez de la Frontera, but also outside of Spain, such in London, Porto, Marseille, or Nice.

 

Authorities expected around 3:30 pm to recover the "normal" workflow in the airports, meaning the weekend would not be impacted.

The announcement came after a midday briefing saying that Aena was "recovering some of the systems," and while all "airports are operating, some processes can take longer than usual, which is causing several delays."

Early in the day, Aena put in force some contingency plans to keep up with all flight operations, and "the main systems were restored," and that the airlines are also working on recovering its usual service.

Travelers experienced some delays, but flights slowly returned to their expected schedule.

Airlines operating in Barcelona, like Vueling, had informed customers that there would be "transit regulations" but no "relevant incidents yet." Passengers received information regarding their flight via email to let them know if their flight was affected or not. 

Ryanair had also advised clients to arrive at the airport "at least three hours before departure time."

'Airport collapsed'

The Barcelona "airport is collapsed," Jordi, a passenger traveling to Venice, told the Catalan News Agency (ACN). Even though he travels with a large suitcase, he will let the airline crew take care of the luggage once he is next to the plane before boarding.

Meanwhile, Diana, from Ecuador, was traveling from Barcelona to Paris during her European tour during her summer holidays. The airline's check-in team wrote her boarding pass by hand so that she could go through security and board the flight.

"I do not feel safe. It is worrying," Diana said to ACN. She is traveling with hand luggage, which makes everything easier. "We avoided a large queue, but we do not know if we will be able to board with this paper."

One of her worries is that the situation will continue to impact her during her trip across Europe.

Jordi, another traveler leaving Barcelona, was heading to the Balearic Islands of Menorca.

"I do not know if we will be able to depart; there are a lot of people here," he said before adding that "there are so many queues that I do not know which one is the one I have to join."

Catalan health hotline impacted

The incident has also affected Catalonia's health hotline, 061. Authorities are asking citizens not to call the hotline except for emergencies so the phone line does not collapse and the staff can work on maintenance.

Authorities are asking callers to prioritize the 112 emergency hotline in case of any "emergency or health emergency."

Earlier in the day, the Terrassa University Hospital and all their related centers confirmed that they experienced issues and recognized there could be delays.

However, around midday, the Catalan health department reported that all radiotherapy treatments in the Catalan Oncology Institute and the Terrassa Hospital had started after finding a fix and that the 061 hotline would be up and working in the afternoon. It was later in the afternoon when all systems had been restored.

"When we say that there has not been any health impact, we say it because we were able to rearrange care units, and while urgent radiotherapy sessions went ahead, others were rescheduled. Therefore, we did not have to cancel any intervention," sitting Catalan health minister, Manel Balcells, said.

The 911 emergency hotline in the USA had also been affected in states like Alaska and Arizona, and in the United Kingdom, the National Health System (NHS)'s online service was also impacted.

'Fully mobilized'

CrowdStrike, the company behind the global IT issue, announced that they are "actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts," George Kurtz, CEO of CrowdStrike, wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

"This is not a security incident or cyberattack, and the issue has been identified, isolated, and a fix has been deployed," he added while also mentioning that Mac and Linux hosts were not impacted.

The company refers "customers to the support portal for the latest updates" and also reports that they will "continue to provide complete and continuous updates" on their website.

"Our team is fully mobilized to ensure the security and stability of CrowdStrike customers," Kurtz said.